Every year, OSHA evaluates each of the 27 State Plan states and territories. Today, we’re looking at the federal agency’s review of Hawaii.

Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health suffered a setback a few years ago when it wasn’t able to maintain enough staff or conduct enough inspections. As a result, the state and federal agencies entered into an agreement where federal OSHA would take over some of the state’s duties while HIOSH makes internal improvements.

In OSHA’s fiscal year 2013 report on HIOSH, the federal agency observes Hawaii has made improvements and regained much of its enforcement authority. However, HIOSH needs to improve its implementation of policies and regulations, and the hiring and retaining of qualified personnel remains a problem for the state agency.

Of the 16 recommendations OSHA made in 2012, the state completed six, including:

Improve response time of complaints to within two work days

Assign inspections for compliance staff in such a way to maximize resources

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